


now was always wrapped around you

by fistfulsofwords



Category: Figure Skating RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe, Ballet, F/M, Hockey, and rpf at that, as if 21 years is the slowest slow build ever, idek why i'm writing fic again, more tags to come eventually, slight mention of body image issues, slooow build
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-10-05
Updated: 2018-11-05
Packaged: 2019-07-25 09:50:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 11,520
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16195100
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fistfulsofwords/pseuds/fistfulsofwords
Summary: What if Tessa had chosen ballet? What if Scott chose hockey? Growing up and growing apart are inevitable, right?ORThe universe knows what it wants, regardless of the timeline they're living in.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> The requisite "RPF weirds me out" note is at the end. Let's be honest, though, we're all sinning together, and if this is hell, I'm pretty cool with it. 
> 
> Let it be known that I know very little about ballet or hockey. Please alert me if I've made any egregious errors, but I'm gonna call the fictional liberties card for most of it. As for the writing itself, I'll gladly take all the feedback you've got.
> 
> Title inspired by the song "Guiding Light" by Mumford and Sons. I misheard the words the first time I listened, but they fit so well for this story that I went with it. The accurate lyrics are "discover some new truth/that was always wrapped around you."

Scott Moir had made a promise. He didn’t break promises, especially those of the pinky variety, but this one was proving very difficult to keep.

“Sarah’s not going to work out,” he informed Aunt Carol after practice. It was late August, and the cool rink was a sweet relief from the heat wave overtaking Western Ontario, except the cold, dry air was making his sunburned nose itch. He rubbed the heel of his hand against it, because both his mom and Carol had scolded him for scratching at it with his nails.

Carol put her hands on her hips and raised an eyebrow at her twelve-year-old nephew. “And why is that?”

Scott shrugged, swizzling around on his skates aimlessly instead of looking her in the eye. “I just don’t think we’d make a good team.”

“She’s a nice little girl, Scotty. And a very good skater. I think the two of you would make a great team,” Carol argued. Scott didn’t say anything in response, and after a moment of silence, an amused smirk spread across her face. “This doesn’t have anything to do with Tessa, does it?”

“No,” Scott muttered, still not looking up at his aunt. He felt his already pink cheeks heating to a darker shade of red.

“Are you sure about that?”

Scott nodded, but he knew he’d been caught. It had _everything_ to do with Tessa. She’d been offered a spot at the National Ballet School in March, and after an entire spring and summer of weighing her options, making lists, and having very in depth discussions with her parents and their coaches, she’d decided to take the offer. Scott was happy for her. She loved dancing more than anything, sometimes so much it annoyed him by how much she talked about it. But he missed her. And trying to find a new partner was proving to be a challenge, not that he was putting much effort into it in the first place.

***

_“I’ll come back and skate with you on vacations. But I can’t compete anymore,” Tessa said sadly. Her little floaty dance skirt seemed to wilt a little along with her face. “I hope you find a new partner soon. You’re the best ice dancing partner in the world.”_

_Scott felt his cheeks flush and he dug his toe pick in, watching the spray as he gouged a divot into the ice. “I don’t really want to skate with anyone else,” he mumbled._

_“Oh, but you have to, Scott!” Her eyes went big and wide and imploring. “You won’t quit skating, will you? Just because I’m leaving?”_

_“No.” Scott crossed his arms over his chest, defiant in the face of how hard this was turning out to be. He didn’t like the idea of Tess having to leave. He was jealous of ballet; he wanted to keep his best friend all to himself._

_“Then promise me you’ll try to find a new partner,” Tessa said sternly. For a eleven-year-old, she acted too much like a grown up sometimes._

_Scott frowned at the ice, digging a deeper hole with his blade, twisting it in harder._

_“Scott?”_

_“Fine. I promise,” he relented, dropping his arms in defeat. “I promise to keep skating, and I promise to try and find a new partner. But only if she’s as good as you.”_

_Tessa’s head bobbed once, satisfied. Then she held out her pinky. “Pinky promise?”_

_After a moment of hesitation, Scott joined his pinky with hers and they shook on it._

***

None of the prospective partners were turning out to be as good as Tessa. So far, there had been six tryouts, and Scott had said no to every single one, becoming more irritated with the process the longer it continued. He found something in each girl that he didn’t like: too giggly, too rough, too quiet, not fast enough. Sarah had come into the rink with her blonde hair pulled back into a ballet bun and a light pink skirt on just like the ones Tessa wore. Scott had made his decision before she’d even laced up her skates, and that was before he discovered that she liked to lead.

Scott stuck his toe pick into the ice, chewing on the skin around his thumb. Aunt Carol made a disapproving noise and he stopped both bad habits immediately, finally looking up at her face. He shrugged again.

“Scotty, if you want to keep skating, you’re going to need to put a little more effort into finding a new partner,” Carol admonished gently. “I know you think Tessa was the best, but there are other girls out there who are just as good.”

_Not possible._

Scott shook his head and Aunt Carol sighed, the kind of deep exhalation of breath that adults made when they thought he was being difficult. “Ok, I guess we’ll just keep trying.”

***

“Scotty, Tessa’s on the phone!”

Scott sprinted out of his room, socks sliding on the hardwood and careening him around corners. His brothers laughed at him as he launched down the last few stairs and skidded to a stop in front of his mom, who was also laughing at him, the phone open and inviting in her outstretched hand. “Hello?” he asked breathlessly, pulling the phone cord taut into the kitchen so Danny and Charlie couldn’t hear him.

“Happy Birthday, Scott!” Tessa’s little voice exclaimed down the phone line. Scott’s face split into a grin and he plopped down on the floor against the refrigerator, clutching the phone to his ear.

“Thanks, T.”

“Do you feel old? Thirteen is old.”

Scott laughed, and Tessa’s laugh echoed his. “No. I just feel like...me, I guess. Hey, I thought you only got one call a week?” Tessa had been at ballet school for nearly three weeks now, and she’d written him one letter so far. The paper was pink and there was a drawing of a pair of ballet shoes in the corner and Tessa’s name along the top in loopy print. It was totally incongruous with everything else in his room, but it was tacked to the bulletin board above his desk anyway. She had written about her roommate and her teachers and how she’d gotten to meet one of her favorite ballerinas. She’d explained all of the rules of ballet school, the strict schedules and the timed calls and the exact way they were supposed to wear their hair. It sounded like the perfect place for Tessa, who was a perfectionist through and through.

“I told my mom I’d call her next week,” Tessa explained. “I wanted to make sure I could tell you Happy Birthday.”

Scott’s heart gave a painful thump. Alma had run into Kate at the farmer’s market last Saturday, and Kate had said that while Tessa was enjoying dancing, she was having a hard time with the separation. Alma had explained homesickness to Scott, to whom the feeling was a foreign concept. He’d never had a reason to miss home, because he’d never had a reason to leave. If there was such a thing as homesickness for a person, however, Scott found that he knew exactly how that felt, especially right now as Tessa gave up her much-needed call time with her parents just so she could wish him a Happy Birthday.“You didn’t have to give up your phone time for me,” he told her. “You should have called your family.” 

“It’s okay.” Her voice was that kind of forced strong, like it sometimes sounded when she was picking herself up off a particularly hard tumble on the ice, and trying not to cry. Scott was always able to take her hand and make her laugh, and then the strained edge in her little voice would go away and she’d be happy again. He wasn’t able to do that right now and he frowned into the phone as she changed the subject. “How’s skating? Did you find a partner yet?”

“No. Nobody’s as good as you,” Scott told her. “My mom’s going to let me join hockey again if I don’t find anyone before November.”

Tessa hummed into the phone, and Scott could hear some rustling on the other end, and another little girl voice whispering something. “I still have ten minutes,” Tessa whispered back, and then there was a huff and Tessa was back on the phone. “Sorry. What did you say?” Scott repeated himself. “Oh. That’s cool. You’ll be the fastest boy on the team.”

Scott shrugged, giving a noncommittal noise in response. His mother had tricked him into ice dancing because she’d promised it would help him with hockey. Much to her satisfaction, he had discovered that he loved ice dancing, and was quite good at it. But that was before Tessa had gone away, and it wasn’t at all the same without his partner. And at the end of the day, it didn’t really matter how long and hard he looked for another girl to skate with. Tessa was his partner, and there wasn’t ever going to be anyone else as good.

They talked for another few minutes, about skating and hockey and ballet and Scott’s birthday party on the upcoming weekend. When it was time to hang up, Tessa’s voice got all high and strained again, and Scott gripped the phone to his ear harder. “I miss you, T,” he told her, hoping it wouldn’t make her cry. He hated it when she cried.

“I miss you, too, Scott. My mom says I get to come home in three weekends. I’ll see you then and we can go skate, okay?” The suggestion of skating with Tessa again made him perk up, and Scott happily agreed. Then they said their goodbyes, and he hung up with a grin on his face. Danny and Charlie teased him about it for the next week, but Scott didn’t care. And when Tessa came home three weekends later, they met back up like she’d never left and Scott almost forgot how much he missed her when she was gone. Almost. 

***

“Quit fidgeting, Scott,” Alma admonished, putting a steady hand on her youngest son’s shoulder. The entire Moir family was seated in a huge, elaborate theatre in Toronto, surrounded by tons of older people in their best clothes. Scott was in a suit, and he kept adjusting his shoulders because he wasn’t used to wearing something so nice. He was also bouncing one knee, and chewing at his thumbnail, and kept crinkling the plastic around the bunch of flowers he held in his hands.

“Nervous to see your girlfriend?” Danny smirked, punching his younger brother lightly in the shoulder.

“She’s not my girlfriend,” Scott grumbled. And she wasn’t. Tessa was his partner and his best friend, but definitely, absolutely, not his girlfriend. He hated when people thought that just because his best friend was a girl, that meant they were boyfriend and girlfriend. 

“Danny,” Alma scolded, giving him a serious look. “Don’t act like you’re not excited to see Tessa, too.” Danny flushed and ducked his head.

The Virtue family had invited the Moirs to Toronto to see _The Nutcracker_ , which Tessa and her class were performing in. They’d sent tickets along, with a sweet note from Tessa inviting them because she wanted to thank them for supporting her.

The house lights dimmed and Scott sat up a little straighter, opening his eyes wide so he could see all of the stage. Alma took the flowers from him and placed them gently on the floor, out of the way of their feet, as the curtain rose. Tessa was playing a party girl, and Scott spotted her right away. Her hair was curled and pulled away from her face, her bangs fluffed to perfection, and her face radiant and happy as she danced with the other kids. She was wearing a dark green dress that was flouncy and swung out when she twirled, and Scott knew that she probably loved that dress, and would have spun round and round just to watch it flare out, like she used to do in her skating costumes.

She was only on stage for the first fifteen minutes, but Scott didn’t mind sitting through the rest of the show after she was done dancing. He didn’t clap as hard for the other dancers as he did the first time, though. When the cast took their final bows and she came back out, hand in hand with her classmates, Scott pounded his hands together, feeling them tingle and sting as he watched Tessa takes her bows.

They met Tessa and her mom afterwards, right next to the door that led backstage. When she saw them, Tessa’s face lit up and she jumped up and down a little, a girlish giggle escaping her. Her hair was still curly and she still had on her stage makeup, but the green dress was gone and replaced by a sweater and jeans. “Hi!” she exclaimed, escaping her mother and running up to the Moir family. There was a chorus of congratulations and thank yous and good jobs. Scott shyly handed her the flowers, and she accepted them with a wide smile and a gasp. “Thank you. They’re so pretty.” Scott blushed, pleased that she liked them. He’d gone to the florist to help Alma pick them out--pink and white roses with a dark blue ribbon holding them together. His mother had tried to convince him to go with something a little more festive, but Scott had known what Tessa would have picked out, and it wasn’t red or green.

They all went out to dinner in downtown Toronto, and Scott made Tessa laugh the entire meal. He drew funny faces on the back of the kids’ menu that they were both too old for, and they played a competitive game of tic-tac-toe, covering the back of the page with crayon because every time one of them would win, the other would challenge again with, “Best of seven” or “Best of fifteen.”

In between games, Scott told Tessa all about his new hockey team in Ilderton. He  _was_ the fastest, like she'd said he would be, and he was tied in second place for most goals scored over the season. He hadn't hung up his dancing skates quite yet, though. Aunt Carol was still determined to find him a new partner, but Scott told Tessa again that there was nobody nearly as good as she was and they'd be giving up the search if they didn't find anybody by the end of March. What he didn't tell her was that he secretly, selfishly wished that Tessa would be so homesick that she'd want to stay after Christmas, and they could just go back to dancing together again. 

* * *

Tessa loved dancing more than anything in the entire world. She loved the lightness of her feet, the fluidity of her arms, the grace with which she held her head. She loved the perfectionism of it, thrived on the lines and the angles and the point of her toes. She especially loved that when she was dancing, she didn’t have to feel so bottled up, she could just let her body go. And Tessa was doing a lot of bottling up.

First it was the homesickness. She spent the entire first two months of ballet school crying herself to sleep every night and looking forward to her weekly phone calls so much that she had a hard time focusing on anything else. She was determined to make sure nobody else knew, because she was eleven (practically an adult!) and at a _professional ballet school_ and professional ballet dancers didn’t cry because they missed their moms. When she talked to her parents on the phone every week, Tessa smiled and chatted and soaked up their voices until she felt so full she’d burst, and then after she hung up, she would lock herself in the closet in her room and cry into her pillow, muffling her sobs in the fabric.

The dorm matron found her like that one Sunday afternoon and Tessa let the woman gather her close, cooing and petting her hair. Tessa hated people petting her hair. She did get an extra phone call out of it, though, and when she called her mom later in the week, the matron sat with her and told on her. “Tessa’s been having a difficult time adjusting to the separation,” she explained, and Tessa could hear the surprised noise her mother made on the other end and then a worried question. “No, I’ve asked her about the other children. They all seem to be getting on fine. It appears to be a classic case of homesickness. I see this all the time, and we have ways of helping the children along. She’ll be begging to come back to school after Christmas, don’t you worry!”

When Tessa was allowed to talk to her mother again, her mom asked, “Do you want to come home?”

“No, Mom. I’m okay,” Tessa replied, forcing her voice to be bright and cheerful.

“Are you sure? I know you love dancing, but I don’t want you to be sad because you’re far away. You can dance back home, too.”

“I’m sure.”

“Okay,” her mother said slowly, like she didn’t believe her. “But if that changes, you’ll let us know, right?”

“Right,” Tessa said, clipping the word together at the end. She didn’t want to talk about going home, because she really, truly did not want to leave. She just wished that the National was in London, not Toronto, where she could hug her mom and dad every day, where Jordan could braid her hair and take her to the ice cream shop down the road, where she could visit with her grandma and spend Saturday afternoons skating with Scott. If only everything could be all in one place where she felt safe doing the things she loved, she wouldn’t feel so conflicted.

A package came in the mail three days later, and Tessa opened it to find all of her favorite things. A bag of chocolates that she shared with the girls in her dorm, and letters from her sister and brothers. A necklace from her grandma that Tessa had always admired from afar, forbidden from touching the jewelry box it was kept in. A brand new dance skirt that all the girls exclaimed over, light blue with a scalloped edge and beautiful satin ribbon to tie around her waist. Tucked into the side of the box was an envelope with pictures in it. There was her sister and one of her brothers that they must have sent from university, smiling up at her, and then there was Scott in a black Nike t-shirt and a happy smile. On the back, he wrote a message to her in what Tessa knew had to be his very best cursive: “Tessa, here is my picture. To the best partner EVER. Love, Scott.”

All three pictures were tacked in a neat row at the bottom of her bulletin board, and Tessa went to sleep clutching the necklace and looking up at the faces of some of her favorite people. The excitement of getting a package had worn off as the afternoon had edged into night, and she was left laying in the dark with thoughts of home and how much she missed it. She told herself not to cry, even going as far as to whisper it fiercely to herself in the dark, silent dorm room. Her family and Scott's family and everyone else was supporting her, and she couldn't cry or it would be like letting them down. So she swallowed her tears and pushed down the homesickness and put herself to sleep with dreams of the lake and her sister and Scott and the ice. She didn't cry herself to sleep again, and eventually, missing them became easier to manage, even though it didn't hurt any less. 

Second was the jealousy. Tessa was not, by nature, a jealous or vindictive person. But when it came to Scott, she found that she couldn’t help pondering whether he had found a new partner yet. If he did, would he tell her? Would the other girl be a good skater? Would Scott decide that he liked skating with her better than he liked skating with Tessa? What if Aunt Carol sent them both off to Kitchener, like she’d been promising to do with Scott and Tessa before ballet school happened? Scott did tell her, eventually, that he was rejoining the hockey team. In his normal messy print-not the loopy cursive he’d written on the back of his picture-he wrote that Aunt Carol was still looking for partners, but they’d nearly exhausted all of the available options in Ontario. Besides, Scott confessed in his letter, none of them were as good as Tessa, and technically, he wasn’t quitting skating; hockey was still considered skating, just without a toe pick. Tessa never, in all of the eleven and a half years she’d been alive, thought that she could be jealous of _hockey_. Yet, here it was, the ugly feeling rising up in her as she read Scott’s letters detailing his games. When he sent along another picture, this time in his red and blue jersey, bent over a hockey stick with a grin on his face, Tessa frowned down at it and stuck it in her bedside drawer. When the Moir family came to see her in _The Nutcracker_ , Tessa plastered a smile on her face and did her best not to wince whenever Scott mentioned his last game, or talked about his teammates, most of whom Tessa didn’t know, but some she did. They’d never been particularly nice to her, even going so far as to convince Scott to “break up” with Tessa over the phone a few years ago, and then laughing at her the next time they’d seen her at the rink. Tessa wasn’t a violent person, either, but you can forgive a heartbroken eight-year-old if she wants to punch the mean boys trying to keep her best friend away from her.

Tessa found herself torn over which she preferred: Scott finding a partner so she didn’t have to lose him to hockey, or Scott playing hockey because he couldn’t find a partner better than Tessa. At the thought of either outcome, Tessa would feel the angry clutch of jealousy fill her chest, but she would smother it down, down, down so that nobody could see it.

The third feeling that Tessa was bottling up was that ballet school, for all of its wonder and glory and beauty, could be a cold, harsh place. The dorms were a safe haven, filled with kids her own age who still had stuffed animals on their beds and got mindlessly excited over letters from home. The dorm matrons mothered them, because they were still just children. They helped them smooth their buns in the mornings, let the children hold their hands, and made sure the living spaces were bright and cheerful and that there were always cartoons on in the common room.

The school spaces were another story. The ballet studios were large and bright, with huge windows looking out over downtown Toronto. It was beautiful, in a crisp, efficient way, but Tessa found herself missing the studio back home in London, with windows that overlooked a lush, green park. The studios had mirrors on two walls, and everyone scrutinized themselves in them. At first, it was just the older girls who did it. While Tessa’s class waited outside for their turn to file in, they’d watched curiously as the upper class had taken their time fixing their hair and makeup, turning sideways to smooth their hands down their flat stomachs, eyes travelling from their nonexistent chests to their flat behinds and down their legs, which were long and thin and graceful. Even through the closed door, Tessa and her classmates could hear the conversations of the older girls: “I really hope my boobs aren’t growing” “God, my legs are so muscular. I need to do more Pilates to thin them out” “Do you think I’m bloated because of the soup at dinner last night? I really should just stick to salads”.

After a few months of observing this, Tessa’s classmates started to copy them. Her roommate would stand in front of the mirror every night before bed, in just her pajama shorts and the training bra she didn’t need, turning this way and that to make sure everything was flat and toned and that her breasts weren’t starting to peek through her tops. Tessa watched curiously, not really knowing what the other girl was looking for; she didn’t have any of the lumps or bumps that she seemed to think were there. All of the girls in their class looked exactly the same from the neck down, and Tessa couldn’t understand why any of them thought otherwise.

The competition was worse than the body-scrutinizing, though. Even at eleven years old, the kids in their class were obsessed with who was the best dancer. Who had the best jumps, turns, and lines? Who was most flexible, who partnered well, who was the teacher’s favorite? Tessa found herself as the object of the other girls’ derision because she was always being partnered with Wesley, the best boy in their class. Wes was a great dancer, leagues ahead of the other boys, and the girls were always clambering to be his partner because their _pas du deux_ mistress gave him the most attention during class. No matter how hard they tried, though, the _pas du deux_ mistress loved Tessa because she had been partnering (in a way) since she was seven, and didn’t get giggly or squirmy when she had to hold Wes’ hand. In truth, Wes’ hands were sometimes clammy and he pulled her along a little too hard, but Tessa imagined it was Scott’s hand so that made it a little better.

They didn’t normally do lifts at this level, but when their teacher found out that Tessa had done them before, she clapped her hands in delight and spent the rest of the class ignoring the other kids and encouraging Tessa to show off what she had learned in ice dancing. It didn’t help that she kept saying, “Look at how advanced Tessa is! These are lifts that the rest of you won’t learn for two more years.” Wes had never lifted a girl before, and Tessa was incredibly nervous every time he grunted under her weight in a simple basket hold. She just kept pretending it was Scott, though, and pictured his smile when she spotted the daggers shooting out of the other girls’ eyes. None of them spoke to her for the rest of the day, only turning their noses up and walking away from her whenever she tried to join their group.

Tessa bottled up the hurt and insecurity she felt. It confused her that everyone was working towards being the best, but knew that the rest of the class would hate them for their success. It made no sense at all, and Tessa struggled with wanting to prove herself and work hard and earn the approval of her teachers, all the while knowing that the other kids would stop talking to her when she got top marks. It felt a little bit like a game she’d been dragged into but really didn’t want to play. All she really wanted to do was dance.

***

By the time summer break came, and Tessa’s mom and sister were in her dorm room helping her pack her things, Tessa couldn’t be more excited to go home. She’d spent the last nine months holding everything in, keeping up her smile and her energy and the mask that told everyone else that she was happy. And she was, at least when it came to the dancing and her school work, where she excelled. But she still found that she missed home far more often than the other girls seemed to, and she didn’t really have any friends besides her roommate. Tessa had never been a social butterfly, so even though the other girls were friendly when they weren’t being competitive, they weren’t what Tessa would consider friends. And her roommate was really only her friend out of necessity.

The jealousy and the pressure and the competition and the homesickness had swirled in Tessa’s stomach for nine months, gripped down in an iron fist made of Tessa’s own will, determined not to break because this was the National Ballet School, and Tessa was newly twelve and there was no way she would ever become a prima ballerina if she let the ugly feelings slip out and break her.

The first week back home, the nearby schools were still in session. Tessa saw a few of her friends the first weekend, feeling out of place among them because she’d missed out on a whole year of inside jokes and experiences, but after a while, they fell right back into their giggling happiness. Their mothers took them to get their nails done, and on Monday afternoon, Tessa joined two of them at her old ballet class and all three of them showed off their brightly painted nails to the other kids and Tessa could breathe a sweet sigh of relief, happy to be a part of a group again.

The last day of school, Tessa and her mom drove to pick up Jordan from the high school, but instead of turning right out of the parking lot, they turned left and headed north out of London. “Where are we going?” Tessa asked from the backseat. She could see the smile her mom shared with Jordan across the center console.

“You’ll see,” was her sister’s cryptic answer, and Tessa frowned at her, because she didn’t like surprises.

After a few minutes, though, they passed the Welcome to Ilderton sign and it became crystal clear where they were heading. Tessa bounced up in her seat. “Are we going where I think we’re going?” she asked excitedly. Jordan turned around and nodded at Tessa, who grinned as they pulled into the parking lot of Scott's school. Every year since they’d been first partnered together, Kate had picked up Tessa from school on the last day and driven her to Ilderton, where they would pick up Scott and go get ice cream at the tiny shop on Ilderton’s main street. It was always the last thing the kids got to do together until late July, because the Virtues headed out of the town the following Monday to spend four weeks at their cottage. Later in the summer, they would reunite in the park across the street, tanned and full of stories to tell after not seeing each other for so long. Tessa hadn't thought they would keep up the tradition now that everything was so different, and she hadn't been brave enough to ask.

Once Kate had parked the car in the pickup line, Tessa unbuckled her seatbelt and leaned forward between the front seats. “Mom, can I stand outside the car?” she asked, and her mother nodded, instructing her to stay on the sidewalk and not leave the car’s side until she saw Scott. Tessa agreed and quickly scrambled out of the car as the final bell of the day rang and kids streamed out of the doors, yelling and celebrating the end of the school year. Tessa scanned the crowds eagerly, bouncing on her toes as she looked for him. She’d never gotten to stand outside of the car before, only being allowed to lean out the open back window until Scott bounded up to meet them. She'd asked because she was worried that he wouldn't know to look for them, and she wanted to be able to run to catch him if he didn't.

“There he is!” Jordan said from where she was watching out her open window. She pointed across the wide front lawn, and Tessa’s eyes found him, walking with a group of boys, all of their backpacks hanging carelessly from one shoulder as they laughed at something he said. Tessa wanted to yell out to him, but she was suddenly shy at the group of boys surrounding him. In past years, he’d always come running up to their car by himself, having already bid his friends goodbye. Like Tessa, he probably didn’t expect them to continue their tradition this year. Tessa bit her lip, watching as he and his friends turned the other way, not sure why she’d suddenly become mute. “Tess, say something!” Jordan urged, reaching a hand out to nudge her little sister. When Tessa didn’t, still unsure, Jordan yelled out, “Scott! Scott Moir!”

Scott and his friends turned around, and it didn’t take Scott but a moment before his grin was lighting up his face and he was hurriedly saying goodbye to his confused friends and sprinting down the sidewalk. Tessa laughed as her collided with her, his arms banding around her and lifting her off her feet. “Hi T!” he said joyfully, clearly surprised. “What are you doing here?”

Relieved, Tessa found her words again and said, “It’s the last day of school. We’re going for ice cream!”

Scott smacked his forehead with his hand. “Right! I forgot about that. Yeah, let’s go.”

Tessa climbed into the car first, followed by Scott, who greeted Jordan and thanked Kate for picking him up. As Kate threaded the car out of the parking lot, Tessa sized up her former partner. He’d grown a few inches over the spring, but his face was still exactly the same. Something else was different about him, but Tessa couldn’t quite figure it out as he asked her about school and ballet and then started to talk about the end of the hockey season. His team had come in second in the league, and they were hoping to take first next year.

It wasn’t until they pulled into the parking lot at the ice cream shop that Tessa figured it out. He was older. All of a sudden, Scott had grown from the little boy who dug his toe picks into the ice and chewed his nails to a thirteen-and-a-half-year-old who slouched in his seat with his limbs thrown everywhere, who talked like her big brothers with casually waving hands and slang words filtering through. Tessa felt young and small as he talked to her. It was like he’d matured into a teenager overnight, and Tessa was still just a little girl. She knew she’d changed over the past year, too, but somehow it felt like she’d gone in the opposite direction. Where Scott’s social personality seemed to have blossomed and grown into something more comfortable and easy and less childishly exuberant, Tessa had become quieter and more aware of herself in a way that she hadn’t been before she’d left for ballet school.

Scott kept talking to Tessa as they stood in line to order their ice cream. His conversation had turned to some movie his brothers had let him watch, which he was whispering about conspiratorially lest Kate hear and tell Alma. Tessa, despite her reservations about the seemingly sudden age gap between them, felt warmth bloom in her chest as he leaned his head down to hers, enveloping them in the safe little bubble she’d so sorely missed. He cracked a joke, she laughed. He bumped her shoulder with his, she bumped back. And just like that, she didn’t feel the separation as harshly as before, because despite the fact that he'd grown up in the span of a few months, he was still Scott. He was still goofy and still her friend and when they got their ice cream, he still got an extra scoop just so he could share it with Tessa. It was like it always had been, and Tessa shoved aside that tiny whisper that tried to tell her that this was a teenage boy standing next to her, a boy who played hockey and talked loudly and kept getting interrupted by older kids Tessa didn't know calling his name to say hello.

She pushed that whisper down like she did with everything else, because that's all it was: a flicker of doubt, a nagging worry that didn't amount to anything. There was no logic in doubting Scott, because he was her best friend. He always had been, and he always would be.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Look, I tried to resist writing RPF. I really did. I still feel weird about it. But the damn plot bunnies (antiquated term, I know) wouldn't leave me alone, so here we are. I haven't published fic in four years (RIP my ff.net account), and then these two assholes come out of nowhere and make me all soft with their undying love and support and devotion to each other. Bear with me as I ease back into this.
> 
> Please enjoy and let me know what you think!


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which we are all reminded that teenage boys are dumb, growing up is bittersweet and painful, and Tessa makes a new friend.

Nobody talked about ballet in the Virtue home, unless Tessa herself brought it up. That was the rule. Kate and Jim had consulted with a child psychologist about how best to approach raising a child who was exceptionally talented in a sport. On the psychologist’s advice, they had made sure everyone knew that their home was place that was safe from the pressures that Tessa faced being in such a harsh, driven environment for the majority of the year. Tessa was encouraged to share if she wanted to, but knew that it wouldn’t be approached unless she led the conversation. So, for four glorious weeks, she didn’t think about ballet once. All she thought about was whether she had enough sunblock on, or if she’d missed putting calamine lotion on that one bug bite in the middle of her back, or if her cousins could find her in their annual day-long game of hide and seek.

When the Virtues returned to London at the beginning of August, tan and relaxed and sun-drunk, Tessa found herself looking forward to going back to school. For as fraught a first year as she'd had, she missed it. She missed challenging herself every day. She missed the structure and the clean lines and rules. She even missed the kids in her class. There was something motivating about being around a group of other kids who were as focused and dedicated to dance as she was. Competition was just par for the course, and Tessa knew she'd be better prepared for it this year.

Room assignments had been sent out while the Virtues were away, and Tessa plucked the letter from the stack of mail excitedly and learned that she would be getting a new student for a roommate. Her name was Kaitlyn, and she was from Texas. International students weren’t uncommon at the National, but very few moved from the US, having their own schools there. Even fewer moved countries at so young an age, preferring to wait until they were in high school. Tessa felt a little thrill that not only would she have a new roommate, she would have something the other girls didn’t. She hoped it would work in her advantage, rather than making them hate her again like they had when she’d been partnered with Wes.

A few days later, the phone rang and Kate called up the stairs for Tessa. It was Kaitlyn, calling to introduce herself. They hit it off immediately, and Tessa chatted excitedly about all the things Kaitlyn would need to know about Canada and Toronto and ballet school. They exchanged their parents’ email addresses and within minutes of hanging up, Kaitlyn was sending a picture of herself cuddled up next to an adorable dog. She was pretty and fair, with long, long blonde hair and green eyes like Tessa’s. Her long limbs and narrow shoulders marked her immediately as a dancer. Tessa, with her father’s help, returned a picture of herself. She chose one from when she first tried on her _Nutcracker_ costume last year. She loved that dress, and had spun around the dressing room to watch it twirl about her legs until she got dizzy. The seamstress had stopped her to take a picture so they knew which dress was hers, and Tessa hadn’t been able to stop giggling when she’d taken it.

When Tessa’s mom dropped her off at the rink a few days later, Tessa bounded in excitedly, her skates bouncing against her side. She hadn’t been skating since the beginning of the summer, and when Scott had called to ask if she wanted to come by the rink, she’d agreed immediately. Tessa was so excited to see Scott and tell him all about her trip to the cottage and her new roommate, but when she stepped into the stands and looked down at the ice, she stopped still. She’d thought that Scott had invited her to skate _alone_ , like they used to, but there were at least thirty boys on the ice, bent over hockey sticks and yelling at each other while their coaches looked on.

_Oh._

Tessa sat down on the very top bleacher and chewed her lip as she watched the mock-up game that was going on below her. She knew which one was Scott; his number was 14. Plus, he was definitely faster than the other boys, his slight body moving to and fro between the others, swiftly handling the puck like it was second nature. When he scored, a bunch of boys cheered and pounded him on the back, and the coaches called for the end of practice. Scott was called back as the other boys skated off the ice, and one of the coaches talked to him seriously, a hand on Scott’s shoulder. Whatever they were talking about, it made Scott grin, and then he asked a delighted question. The coach answered and then ruffled Scott’s sweaty hair before sending him off the ice as well.

The rink cleared and the zamboni trundled out to resurface the ice. Would he be coming back out? Had he forgotten? Did he even want to skate after a hockey practice? Tessa watched the door to the locker rooms and worried at her lip for a few minutes, before she decided that the least she could do was wait by the door to catch him on the way out. If he had indeed forgotten, it wouldn't be too bad, really. They could still go to the park or get ice cream. Or they could run the three blocks over to his house and climb the tree in his backyard like they used to.

A bunch of the boys had filed out of the locker room, and one of them spotted Tessa as she was making her way down the steps. _Oh no_. She stopped in her tracks, sitting down on a bench and fiddling with something in her bag, trying to make herself seem as small and uninteresting as possible. It didn't work. She looked up to see the boys standing over her, mischievous grins sliding onto their faces in a way that made her feel smaller still. “Hey, Tutu,” one of them drawled. “Come to watch your boyfriend practice?”

“He’s not my boyfriend,” Tessa said automatically. She’d gotten so used to answering that question that it was a reflex by this point. “And don’t call me that.” Danny and Charlie were the only people allowed to call her "Tutu". She hated that the hockey boys had caught on and used it to make fun of her.

“Isn’t that what you are now? Tutu? You’re at that fancy ballet school and everything. You left Scotty all alone.” His voice had taken on a taunting tone, and the other boys snickered behind him.

“Yeah, what kind of partner are you?” One of the others piped up, and it made Tessa’s chest constrict. He didn’t know it, but he’d just said the words that plagued Tessa the entire first six weeks of school. _What kind of partner am I for leaving him?_

Tessa looked up at the boys, willing her hands not to shake. “We’re still partners.”

“No, you’re not. You left,” the first boy retorted nastily. “And now we have Scott on our team, so I guess it all worked out in the end. He’s a better hockey player, anyway. He doesn’t need a girl to help him be a good skater.”

Tessa’s blood set to boil, but she bottled it up, down, down, down. She couldn’t get emotional, not in front of these mean boys. “Scott’s only a good skater _because_ he skates with me. And we’re still partners, no matter what you say,” she retorted, proud of herself for how even her voice was. Her hands curled into fists and she could feel the reddening of her face, the quickening of her breath. _Don't cry don't cry don't cry._

The second boy spotted Tessa’s skates and darted forward, snagging them from the bench before she could stop him. “You can’t be skating partners without skates! You don’t need them anyway. You’re a _ballerina_ now.”

“Hey!” Tessa jumped up and shot her hand out to grab her skates back, but the boy just held them out of her reach, too tall for her to even jump.

“Oh, you gonna show us how you dance, Tutu?" the boy teased, and Tessa’s face got redder and hotter and she felt like she couldn’t breathe. This was worse than the other kids at ballet school, whispering behind her back and shooting her nasty glances in class; this was all out humiliation. No matter how hard she tried to smother down her feelings, the tears pricked at the back of her eyes anyway. She stopped jumping for her skates and crossed her arms over her chest. She set her face into a hard mask, biting her cheek so she wouldn’t cry. “Oh, come on, Tessa,” the first boy goaded. “Won’t you dance with me?” He reached his hands out to grab her shoulders and Tessa twisted out of his grip.

“No. Don’t touch me!” she yelped, hating the pitch in her voice and how it ricocheted around the nearly empty rink. The only adult in the large space was Tom the zamboni driver, who was notoriously inattentive to the antics of the kids in the rink.

The boy advanced again, his hand managing to catch Tessa's. It was too hot and too big and all wrong, and he held on too tightly as he laughed at her, "Come on, Tutu. We'll give you skates back if you dance with us."

Tessa tugged at her hand, but he wouldn't let go and she had half a thought to scream. She had inhaled a large breath, ready to let it loose on the hard, echoey surfaces of the cavernous rink, when a voice called over the buzz of the zamboni.

"Hey!"

The boy dropped Tessa's hand in an instant, and everyone looked to see Charlie Moir standing on the bottom row of the bleachers. "What the hell is going on?"

"We were just messing around, man," one of the boys said, but his confidence wavered in the face of one of the older Moir brothers. Even the most mischievous of the hockey boys knew not to mess with Danny or Charlie.

Charlie ascended the bleachers and said, "Practice is over. Go home." His voice was steely and his bulk--which he'd recently grown into and enjoyed flaunting--was on full display, arms crossed over his chest. He put himself neatly between Tessa and the boys, staring them all down before they dropped Tessa's skates and ran for the door.

As soon as they were out of sigh, Charlie's intimidating demeanor dropped back to the sweet boy who was like another older brother to Tessa. He bent to look her right in the eyes. "You okay, T?" 

She shrugged, not wanting to speak lest her voice crack. To hide her face, she bent down and plucked her skates from the step. She turned them over in her hands, searching for any damage, and then brushed them off when she deemed them okay.

"I can beat them up for you, if you want. Or have them kicked off the team. Kicked out of the rink, actually," Charlie offered. He said it ruefully and with a smile, but Tessa knew he was serious. She shook her head, not wanting to make a big deal out of it, and Charlie's smile fell into something more concerned. "I gotta at least tell my mom," he said gently.

Tessa started to shake her head, and jumped when a voice called out, "Tell me what?" Both turned to see Alma, accompanied by Scott, who was grinning excitedly, though it faded the second he took in Tessa's face and the way she was hugging her skates to her chest.

Charlie turned to Tessa, giving her the floor to explain, and after a moment's panicked hesitation, she did. They'd get it out of her eventually, and there was nothing she could keep from Scott or Alma. They were so alike in that way, able to get her to speak with just a look.

Alma's face hardened into an expression Tessa was thankful she only rarely saw, and Scott's turned incredulous, then murderous. Alma's lips opened to say something, but her youngest son beat her to it. "I'll beat them up for touching you," he vowed fiercely. His hands curled into fists and his entire body tensed, like he was preparing to head into a boxing ring.

"Scott," Alma warned. "Temper."

"What? Don't tell me you don't want to beat those bastards up for hurting Tess," Scott retorted, his tone colored with hot fury. He had risen up onto his toes, preparing to run out of the rink then and there.

"Ice, Scott Patrick. Now." Alma said sternly, pointing to the freshly flooded rink. This was often the only way to get Scott to cool down, literally _and_ figuratively. Skate all his energy out into fast strokes and controlled curves and edges until he was clear-headed enough to be rational and use proper language in social environments.

Scott huffed and hauled his hockey bag down to the ice, collapsing heavily onto a bench and digging his dance skates out. Alma turned back to Tessa and Charlie. "Thank you, Charlie," she said quietly, putting a gently hand on her middle child's arm. "Please make sure you control your temper as well."

"I'll try, Ma. Can't say it'll be easy, though," Charlie promised, glancing at Tessa again. 

"I'd like a minute with Tessa. Could you go check that the locker rooms are cleared?"

Charlie agreed, and after a pat on Tessa's shoulder and a nod at her murmured thanks, he ducked away. Scott was racing fast laps around the rink at that point, the curves rasping angrily against his blades, spray flying up and ruining Tom's careful resurfacing.

"Tessa?" Alma asked, calling Tessa's attention back to her. Tessa bit her lip and looked at the floor. There was something about Alma that made Tessa want to spill all of her secrets to her. With just a single utterance of her name, Tessa felt full to the brim with all the secrets she'd kept over the last year, all the doubts and insecurities and bottled up feelings. She felt like she couldn't keep any of it in any longer, and it was as if Alma could see through Tessa's carefully built mask as easily as if it were tissue paper, down to Tessa's sudden burning need to tell someone, anyone, how badly the things those boys had said hurt. Alma sat on one of the bleachers, and patted the space beside her, and Tessa couldn't do anything else but heed her invitation. Alma turned to her, gave her all of her attention, and prompted Tessa to speak. So she did.

***

The rush of wind whipped into Scott's face, a drastic wave of cold against his burning cheeks. They'd touched her, taunted her, tried to hurt her, and Scott had been dicking around in the locker rooms with his friends while it all happened. He'd told her 6pm, and it was 6:10 before he'd raced the opposite way of the rink to the offices, too excited to tell his mom about what Coach had told him to even remember that Tessa would be waiting on him. Now, being asked to go to the Ontario AAA showcase with a good chance of being scouted early for a Juvenile team was accompanied by the sour taste of guilt coating his throat. Some partner he was.

He'd have to apologize to her, and then go find those guys and teach them a lesson about messing with Tessa. It would be worth it if his mom yelled at him, he rationalized. At least they'd know better than to do it again. And if it got them off Scott's back as well, then, even better.

He leaned hard into his edges around the corners, relearning the feel of his dance skates after a few months out of them. He was mindful of the toe picks, aware of his mom and Tessa watching from up in the stands, even as they had some sort of really deep discussion between the two of them. Tessa was doing most of the talking, her face turned away so he couldn't see her expression. That worried him, not seeing her face. And that she was talking so much. And that Alma was nodding with that understanding, concerned look she got whenever Scott went to her with a problem he was facing. He skated faster so he wouldn't have to see it.

After a few minutes, his mother's voice called across the ice and Scott braked to a stop, turning to see them standing at the edge of the boards. He skated over and definitely did _not_ like how Tessa looked like she'd been crying. He looked accusingly at his mother, who only leveled a warning look back at him, even as she said, "I'm going to let the two of you skate. I'll be in my office if you need anything." She rubbed Tessa's back once and Tessa turned a small smile on her as Alma walked away.

The second his mother rounded the corner, Scott skated closer to the boards and held out his hand. It always made him feel better to hold Tessa's hand, and he knew by the way she always held so tightly to his hand that it made her feel better, too. She placed her hand in his and held so tightly then, looking at the way their joined hands met over the lip from the concrete to the ice.

Scott didn't know how to apologize for forgetting about her, because it would mean admitting to it in the first place. Instead, he repeated his promise from earlier, now that his mother wasn't around to hear it. “I’ll beat them up for touching you."

She looked up at him and shook her head. “They’re bigger than you, Scott.”

“Doesn’t matter,” Scott replied. “They tried to hurt you, so I’m going to beat them up.”

Tessa shook her head again and swiped at her face with her free hand. She chewed at her lip nervously, and Scott had to clench his other hand into a fist to stop himself from jumping in to talk over her. Tessa always needed a moment to think before she spoke, and he'd interrupted her too many times. Something told him that whatever she wanted to say was too important for interruption. “Was I a bad partner to you?” she finally asked, and it felt like a punch to the gut. “Do you hate me because I left?” She didn’t look at his face, and it only made Scott's anger at those boys and stupid ballet school fester even more.

“No!” Scott protested vehemently, making her jump with force of it. He squeezed her hand to silently apologize for it. “No, you’re the best partner, T. Don’t listen to them. They’re jerks.”

A dent appeared between her eyebrows and her face had grown gravely serious. “But they’re right. We’re not partners anymore.”

Scott shook his head wildly, panic and anger and guilt setting in at the idea of not having her as his partner anymore. “No, that’s stupid. We’re still partners. Just because you picked ballet and I picked hockey doesn’t mean we can’t still skate together.”

“It’s not the same, though,” Tessa insisted, her voice growing thick and her eyelashes growing wet. She swallowed hard and scrubbed at her face with the sleeve of her sweater.

Seeing Tessa cry made Scott feel the same way he had when he'd spoken to her on the phone on his last birthday. He felt helpless, despite being able to hold her hand this time. He would have offered a joke, but this was not the situation to be cracking jokes, even though he'd rather hear her laugh in this moment that anything else in the world. So he was quiet for a moment, his hand still gripping Tessa’s like a lifeline as everything around him seemed to be splintering. His voice trembled when he finally did speak, barely able to get out the question he knew he didn't want an answer to. “Do...do you not want to be partners anymore?”

"I don't know," she whispered, her eyes flickering back to the chasm that seemed to have opened up between them, only their hands grasping at each other in the center. Scott could feel his face twist up into something ugly and turn even uglier as she said, "Can we still be best friends, though?"

Scott nodded, because what else could he do? Lose her altogether because she didn't know if they could be partners anymore? Like hell he'd lose her. If he had to settle for best friends, then best friends they would be. He felt winded, his heart beating fast like he'd just skated twenty laps around the ice at full speed, while at the same time, he felt like he could curl up and let the ice swallow him whole.

Another few moments of silence went by, and Tessa was the first to break their grip, gently extracting her hand from his. She bit her lip again, her cheeks pink and eyes uncertain as they tracked over the ice behind him. "Do you still wanna skate with me?" Scott asked, his voice thin and barely even as he struggled to draw breath and remain calm.

Tessa released her own breath and nodded silently. She turned to put on her skates while Scott waited, toeing the ice with his blade and biting the inside of his cheek to control the trembling that had started in his chin.

Once she was laced up and standing at the edges of the boards, Scott held out his hand again and she took it. They didn’t talk, just stroked around the ice, in perfect synchronicity like they always had. Except Scott noticed that he was now much taller, and hockey had changed his posture a bit. He had to remind himself to stand up straight. Tessa wobbled a bit at first, and it was almost like she had nearly forgotten what it felt like to put blade to ice. And while they remembered how to hold hands, and how to skate side by side, how to turn and work together in their carefully crafted synchronicity, it was like they’d forgotten how to speak.

* * *

 

Kaitlyn was the perfect roommate. She was tidy and kind and prone to a bout of the giggles now and then, almost always spreading those giggles on to Tessa. Kaitlyn did not worry about how her body looked in her leotard. She didn’t resent Tessa for being the best girl at partnering. She didn’t act like she was any older than she was. The two girls shared secrets and sat together at mealtimes and always claimed spots next to each other at the barre.

Kaitlyn was a stunning dancer. The teachers sometimes _tsked_ at her for her technique, but whatever she lacked in that department, she made up for in spirit. Her joy for dancing exuded out of her whenever she took the floor, and every movement was full to her fingertips, the top of her head, the ends of her toes. This was the thing that Tessa loved sharing with Kaitlyn the most: their passion for dancing.

Kaitlyn very soon became Tessa’s best friend, and Tessa wondered what exactly it meant that her roommate had claimed that title. She knew, objectively, that it was possible to have more than one best friend, but things with Scott had felt strange the last few weeks of summer. They'd seen each other, of course, at family barbecues and at the rink and just hanging out, but the easiness of their friendship had retracted. A major shift had occurred between them at the rink that day, and Tessa found herself wishing sometimes that she hadn't said anything at all about their partnership.

She still wrote to Scott, and called him on his fourteenth birthday, but the letters decreased in frequency, and when he sent his school picture, it only said his name and the year on the back of it, in his mother’s handwriting. Tessa tried not to let it bother her too much.

“Who is that boy? One of your brothers?” Kaitlyn asked one night in the middle of September, pointing up at Tessa’s corkboard. She'd received the envelope in the mail that day, and tacked the pictures up immediately. Tessa was sitting on Kaitlyn’s bed, braiding the other girl’s freshly-showered hair. They were both hoping that if she wrapped the braids up and pinned them to the back of her head, she could get away with wearing the style to class tomorrow instead of their requisite bun.

“Oh, that’s Scott,” Tessa answered. Had she not told Kaitlyn about him? “He’s not my brother. He’s my skating partner. Well, he _was_ my skating partner.” She frowned at her own word choice, still unsure how to quantify her relationship with Scott. She still wanted him to be her partner, but that label didn't fit anymore. He was her best friend, but not actively so, and even that seemed like the wrong label to use.

Kaitlyn looked up at the picture thoughtfully. “He’s cute,” she said decisively, and Tessa snorted in surprise at her pronouncement of Scott's attractiveness. “What? You don’t think he’s cute?”

Wracked with giggles, Tessa shook her head. “No! Scott’s like...I guess he’s like my brother. Or a cousin. We’ve been best friends since before I can remember. That would be weird.” She scrunched her nose up and feigned a shudder. Scott was definitely _not_ cute in the way that her friends talked about boys being cute. He was goofy and sometimes snarky and _always_ funny. He was also kind and giving and seemed to know how to make Tessa’s worries go away, even if she didn’t realize she was worrying.

Kaitlyn turned around to look at Tessa’s face, one braid still clutched in Tessa’s hand. “Lucky! I’ve always wanted a friend like that!”

Tessa tugged on the braid gently. “Well, what am I, then?”

Kaitlyn laughed her infectious laugh, making Tessa laugh, too. “I guess you’re right. We’re best friends.” She said it with a bit of wonder, and Tessa smiled to herself as she finished off the braid.

“Thanks for not asking if he’s my boyfriend. Everyone does that,” Tessa said, starting on the other braid.

Kaitlyn shrugged as she turned around again. “If he was your boyfriend, you would’ve told me already. Best friends tell each other everything.”

***

Tessa sent tickets to _The Nutcracker_ again that year, and the Moirs got all dressed up and drove to Toronto to see her. They brought flowers again, but Scott let his mother pick them out; he had indeed made the AAA juvenile team, and had hockey practice in London every night until nine, so he didn’t have the time to go with her.

She was a party girl again, dancing in a soft pink dress this time. Scott smiled as he watched her. She really loved being up on the stage; he could see it in her smile every time she danced under the lights. The illumination of the stage lights was nothing compared to the glow coming from within that smile. Up close, she was little to him, but up on the stage, surrounded by other dancers, Tessa seemed larger than life. He found himself thinking that he was so proud of her.

Again, the Moir family waited by the stage door, and after a few minutes of dancers and their families exiting, Tessa and another girl tumbled out with their arms linked, giggling at each other. Scott vaguely remembered Tessa showing him a picture over the summer and excitedly telling him about her roommate from the US and figured out quickly that this must be Kaitlyn.

“Hi!” Tessa greeted, hugging everyone and thanking them for coming. When she got to Scott, he hugged her tightly and her feet lifted off the ground, making her laugh. She introduced them to Kaitlyn, who the Moirs invited to dinner as well. As they walked to the restaurant, all bundled up in their coats and scarves against the December cold, Kaitlyn and Tessa stuck together like glue. Even as they talked to Scott, one of them would lean in and whisper an inside joke or something, causing the other girl to laugh quietly. Scott did _not_ like feeling like the third wheel.

At dinner, Alma asked the girls about school and ballet, and they were polite in answering her questions. Tessa finally turned to Scott and asked him about hockey, and Scott savored the look of interest on her face as he talked about the new team he was on. Even if she was faking it, at least she was paying attention to him.

“Is anyone else from Ilderton on the team?” Tessa asked. Scott could tell she was thinking about last summer, and the group of boys who had teased her at the rink. She was fiddling with her spoon on the table, not looking at him when she asked.

“Uh, just Brandon Corwin.” Scott watched her reaction closely when he said it, because Brandon had been one of those boys, the one who had stolen her skates.

“Oh.” Tessa swallowed and her hands fell to her lap, where she twisted her fingers together. “He’s a good player.”

“Not as fast as Scott, though,” Danny piped up from down the table, throwing a proud smile at his younger brother. “And the kid’s a total bully. He gets a penalty for checking nearly every game.”

“The Corwin boy?” Mr. Moir asked, looking up from his steak. “Paul says he’s not very long for the team if he keeps that up.”

“One of the dads,” Scott explained to Tessa and Kaitlyn. He didn’t know if Kaitlyn knew what had happened at the Ilderton rink, but he could see her watching Tessa closely, her eyes flitting between the other girl’s face to her hands and back again. A furrow appeared between her eyebrows and then she looked up and her gaze met Scott’s. He’d only just met Kaitlyn, but in that one look, Scott’s fourteen year old brain clicked on a feeling. As young as he was, he didn’t understand the words, but it would equate to: _You can trust her with Tessa. She’s going to take care of her._

As Scott’s family discussed hockey, Scott reached out and placed a tentative hand on Tessa’s arm. When she turned to him, he raised his eyebrows in a question, and in return, she set her mouth in a straight line and nodded solemnly.

It bothered Scott that the incident still bothered Tessa. He’d confronted that group of boys just after she had left to go back to school, and they’d laughed down at him, saying she needed a little roughing up, teasing Scott about his _girlfriend_ and asking if he missed her. He’d always been quick to anger, and Scott retaliated, pitting himself one against four in a fight that did not end well for him. All five boys got pulled into the coach’s office the next day, and they were suspended from practice for three days. Scott didn't regret it one bit.

Scott may have the been quick to anger, but he was also quick to forgive. Except when it came to Tessa, and the guilt of forgetting her and leaving her alone, Scott felt the nagging, burning anger simmering in his gut long after their dinner in Toronto. Two weeks later, Scott happily reported in a letter that Brandon had been kicked off the London team for excessive roughness. What Scott didn’t tell Tessa was that he may have said some things to rile Brandon up at practice, which may have caused Scott to get a particularly hard check into the boards, and Scott may or may not have had a bruised jaw and a super-inflated sense of pride as a result. He felt good that he’d gotten justice, and he really hoped it made Tessa feel a little bit better. If he couldn't hold her hand and make her laugh, then he could sure as hell make sure she knew he was fighting for her, partners or not.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for all the kudos and comments on the first chapter!   
> I should probably let you know now that I am the worst at updating on any semblance of a consistent schedule. I fully intended to post this like three weeks ago, and then life had a "when it rains, it pours" moment and I got a new job, turned 25, and had to get a new car all in the span of about ten days. Enter a minor quarter-life crisis, and suffice to say, fic took a seat in the back row for a bit.   
> There will be one more chapter of our sweet kiddos as they move into the teenage years, and then we're going to make a time jump to adulthood. Setting up the family relationships was important to me, as was perfecting the moments between Tessa and Scott. A tiny teaser: you'll get the contents of Tessa's conversation with Alma a little further down the road, so keep an eye out for that ;)  
> Enjoy! Kudos and comments are much appreciated!


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